April Lindgren, an associate professor at Ryerson University's School of Journalism in Toronto, led a study looking at Toronto-area ethnic media's coverage of the 2011 election. Gary Gould / Ottawa Citizen

The Conservatives successfully targeted “very ethnic” ridings in the last federal election, according to a Ryerson University study of five Toronto-area ethnic newspapers. The party got good press by giving interviews and fielding diaspora candidates, as associate journalism professor April Lindgren, who led the study, told the Citizen’s Dylan Robertson.

Why did you decide to study this?

In the run-up to the 2011 election there was interest from media and politicians in the effort from the Conservative to court the ethnic media, like the leaked strategy document that the party would target 10 of what they called “very ethnic” ridings from across the country.

We also saw a pattern of courting the ethnic media undertaken by Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, who was then helping brief ethnic media separate from the parliamentary press gallery. There was also an advertising strategy in the key ridings.

I was interested in what impact that might have, and we don’t know a lot because in many cases there are language barriers. It’s actually very expensive and difficult to do, and the only similar research I know of recently was a 2007 study on Korean media in British Columbia at Simon Fraser University.

I had some talented students who spoke Korean, Punjabi, Russian and Chinese and we were able to find a common protocol for finding what stories were about. We asked how much did they report, and how did they report it.

What did you find?

I couldn’t find any evidence of specifically biased stories that were clearly expressing a favourable opinion. None of the tone was negative; all of it was neutral or positive, including in the photos. But certainly we found that the Conservatives were more prominent than others; they’re getting the message out effectively to a targeted audience.

Was this because of the something in ethnic media, or were the Conservatives running a more successful campaign? I tend to think it’s the latter. They ended up with more photographs appearing in the papers. The incumbents were mentioned first in stories, meaning they’re setting the agenda and others have to follow up in the article. They were also the sole focus in articles, more so than the other parties. The Conservatives came ahead in terms of sheer quantity.

I summarize in my conclusion that for the Conservatives it likely paid off, and certainly it didn’t hurt.

Did the ethnic press cover different topics?

The issue of a coalition government tended to be more prominent in the ethnic media. That seemed to be the message that the Conservatives were drawing quite heavily, raising the issue of Bloc Québécois being a partner in the government. That suggests to me the Conservatives were more successful in peddling this to the ethnic media than the mainstream press. The coverage was designed to spark outrage.

Tell me about the impact of candidates from minority communities.

I was able to quantify some numbers behind the suggestion that if there is someone from the community a newspaper covers, that fuels their coverage in the election.

For example, in the Punjabi papers. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there were quite a large number of Punjabi candidates from all parties in the ridings they covered. There was way more coverage of those ridings in the Punjabi press than the Toronto Star, which has to cover over 40 ridings.

The same goes for Chinese candidates. But there was relatively very little election coverage in the Russian and Korean language press, and there wasn’t a candidate from either of those communities.

The Citizen learned last month that the Conservatives spent $20 million since the 2011 election monitoring media, especially the ethnic press. Does that surprise you?

No. There’s quite a high readership and people rely on press in their native language because they tell the story of their community. These papers have a lot of reach, especially the Chinese and Punjabi press.

In terms of journalists who work in the ethnic media, I think they see it as recognition of the importance of the role they play in covering their communities.

There were concerns about ethnic-media reporters being given exclusive interviews and not asking tough questions.

Among those reporters, there’s a real thirst for opportunities for professional development. Within smaller papers, the standards of journalism and fairness in coverage aren’t always strong because anybody can start a newspaper, and people in the ethnic media sector may not have had any media experience.

I’d like to see some study of press releases put out during ads after this election period, because I see some are published verbatim in the newspapers. The parties are producing press releases that are in different languages, and they’re being printed rather than examined and reported on.

Your report seems to suggest ethnic media is becoming more important in Canadian elections.

The Conservatives aren’t alone in making these overtures to ethnic media. We saw the B.C. Liberals put an emphasis on ethnic media in the May 2013 election. They made interviews with ethnic media a priority, and encouraged supporters to write letters to editors and phone in to minority-language radio shows.

And advertising is now clearly on the radar of the parties. Last year the Conservatives had Punjabi language advertisements attacking Justin Trudeau’s support for more relaxed marijuana legislation.

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